Expansão sustentável do mercado brasileiro de ervas medicinais e fitoterápicos

Abstract

The use of natural medicines (medicinal herbs and herbal medicines) grows in Brazil and in the world. Evidence of the benefits of its use is listed in several research sources: scientific articles, government agency websites; World Health Organization (WHO) websites. This work has as general objective the perception of clients about natural medicines. A bibliographic review was carried out on medicinal herbs and herbal medicines and information was obtained such as the use of natural medicine in antiquity for the treatment of diseases; data such as Brazilian potential due to its biodiversity and other factors were also acquired, as well as renewable products, current legislation, production, commercialization and export of natural medicines. For the case study, interviews were carried out with nine clients from 05/14/22 to 05/28/22, addressing factors such as the reason that induced trust in natural medicines and which resulted in 77.77% of clients trusting due to the satisfactory results by its own use; 22.22% affirmed trust due to family culture, but all respondents trust natural medicines. A scale from 0 to 10 was drawn in the confidence requirement and the majority (55.55%) gave Ten and the lowest grade given by a participant was Eight. Regarding consumption: 33.33% of the participants said they used it monthly; 55.55% said another and 11.11% did not know or did not give an opinion. About renewable products, few customers understood the meaning or were not able to respond. The hypotheses about the client's positive view, such as trust, interests, were confirmed both by the interviewees and by the bibliographic study. On the potential of the Brazilian market for expansion in natural medicines were confirmed in the bibliographic study. Thus, it is suggested to carry out more work like this, as a way of extending scientific knowledge to expand the Brazilian market of natural medicines and projection in foreign trade.